What Does Your Fight Look Like…This Year?

JJ Heller and her husband Dave put out a video of a brand new song they had just written on New Year’s Day. It went viral. Check it out….

They sing…

Let’s fight a good fight.

Train our eyes to find the light.

and on they sing but I started wondering what a good fight looks like. Maybe it’s different for everyone.

This year you may literally be fighting tooth and nail…wrestling…working hard in some battle you are facing. We all find ourselves in those seasons. You do your best and hopefully emerge on the other side banged up and bruised but wiser and closer to God. Do we always emerge from battle that way?

For me this year the good fight means not to fight or be strong but to crawl up into Jesus’ arms and rest. In reading Finding Spiritual Whitespace I’m learning some things about myself that I didn’t know.

I’ve written before about how it’s hard for me to let God be God (HERE. HERE.). I tend to absorb what’s going on around me and my desire then is to carry the pain of others rather than just sit with them in it. I want to make things better rather than bring them to THE ONE who really can.

The result is too much work and effort in my soul. Always being strong, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and trying to carry it all without breaking a sweat will plum wear a heart out.

I’m worn out.

I’m tired of working hard to be strong and independent. I’m tired of pulling myself up and pushing through.

The Protestant Work Ethic and our American tradition of pulling ourselves up by our boot straps is so engrained in us that often we can’t see the forest for the trees. Hard work is Biblical – yes – and we often remind ourselves and others of what Proverbs teaches about laziness. But do we get it wrong sometimes?

God has entrusted us with much to do and care for but we aren’t to do that work out of our own strength and we aren’t to labor at those jobs which are not ours to do.

Being strong…pressing on…pushing through are all necessary at times and have a part in our story…but it’s not the whole story.

There are times when God just wants to hold us…to have us turn the fight over to him…to REST in the assurance that He has got us.

My fight this year is the opposite of what you imagine when you hear the word fight but it’s mine all the same.

I’m fighting for rest.

I’m fighting that tough girl inside me that insists everything is fine and we just need to keep moving.

I’m fighting to let myself fall apart in His arms.

I’m fighting to allow myself the space to be weak and real and vulnerable.

I’m fighting to let my heart really feel some things and to let Jesus lead me.

I’m fighting to receive instead of control and work for.

I’m fighting to laugh more and let go.

I’m fighting to be little kinder to myself.

So, what about you? What is your fight this year? Fighting to become or believe? Fighting to hang on when you should let go? Fighting to stay strong when Jesus is asking you to be weak?

Friends, I’m giving you permission to do it. If what you need is not another pep talk on being strong, hustling and working but permission to fall apart for a bit then you have it. Take the time you need. Feel the feelings, shed some tears, put your heart in God’s hands and let Him do the heavy lifting. It’s okay.